The Waitress and the Bartender
by secondmezzanine
Summary: It takes exactly one year for Carl and Wendy to come to their senses. Carl acts like an overprotective big brother toward Wendy... which of course drives her crazy... which is unfortunate when he starts to fall in love with her.


**Disclaimer**: Sadly, I own nothing.  
**Spoilers**: Very minor for "The Platinum Rule" and "The Bracket" (ie, these episodes from Wendy's POV).

**Author's Notes**: I've had this plot bunny drifting around my head for awhile now, and I finally managed to write it. I know the pairing's almost too cute, but... I couldn't help myself. I love Carl and Wendy the Waitress!

**April **

The moment Doug's fist swings at the man sitting at the bar, Wendy knows she's done for. She's in the line of fire, and Doug's never been one for grace. He's probably broken at least twenty-five glasses since starting at MacLaren's as a bartender, and that's even more than Wendy's broken. The man on the barstool's eyes are wide, and Doug's fist is coming toward them both in slow motion. There isn't time to move. Her eye will be black for a month.

She barely has time for reflex to kick in, closing her eyes tightly, and she hears the crunch of bone and flesh colliding. Then a hand is on her arm, fingers closing softly over the sleeve of her black T-shirt, and Carl's voice is asking if she's all right. Wendy opens her eyes and Doug's on the floor, clutching his twisted hand. His original target, the man on the stool, is high-tailing it for the door. Carl's looking at her, stroking her arm and saying something.

"What?"

"I said he nearly clocked you. Watch your step around here, kiddo." He winks and lets her go, heading for the office in back.

She's annoyed. She's been working here for two years and she doesn't need him protecting her. Or calling her kiddo.

But the sight of Doug whimpering and adjusting his toupee is pretty satisfying.

**May **

It's nearly one in the morning, and Carl's still just as grouchy as when he came in. He makes drinks, slams them on the counter, even snaps at Ted and Marshall when they refuse to accept that The Godfather II is better than the first.

"Wendy, you bussed that table over there yet?" he calls from the bar to where she's standing at Robin and Lily's booth, delivering their mozzarella sticks.

"I'm on it."

"Well get on it faster. It's Saturday night for Christ's sake, people are waiting."

Wendy exchanges looks with Robin and Lily, both their eyebrows raised. "He's just a little grumpy tonight, sorry," she murmurs to them, setting down their food.

"I'd say he looks like he's got woman troubles," Lily says, looking over her shoulder at him.

"What, like his period?" Robin quips.

"No, like Yasmine might've broken up with him."

Wendy sneaks another look at Carl. "You think? They've been going strong for two years. Well, off and on. Okay, maybe not so strong."

She catches him in a quiet moment after last call as they clean glasses together. "What's going on with Yasmine?"

Carl snaps a look at her, his dark eyes suspicious. "So you heard."

She shrugs. "Something."

He sighs and shakes his head, setting down a stack of glasses with a small _crack_. "Never date a model, Wendy. Temperamental bitches, all of them."

"Like I could get a model."

He scoffs like she's said something ridiculous. He doesn't say much else. But then, he doesn't usually. Wendy worries for a moment, dries the same glass three times. Then she puts a hand over his. "It'll be okay. She probably just needs some time to figure out what she really wants." It's the best she can come up with. He looks at her hand for a moment, studies it, before slipping his own out from under it.

"Don't Dr. Phil me, Wendy. She's a temperamental bitch."

**June **

Carl's never had a problem with mixing work and pleasure. That is, the issue's never come up, and he likes it that way. Sure, he might have met Yasmine at a bar (the bar he was working at as a way to pay his way through college, which he never finished, but who cared; college was for scoring with women and he already had Yasmine), but she's history and he doesn't need to hit on the drunk single girls who drift in and out of MacLaren's. He's just fine without a girl. He was just fine whenever he and Yasmine were in the "off" part of their on-again, off-again relationship, and he'll be just fine now that the "off" has become permanent. If he wants to date a girl, he'll go back to Brooklyn and find an Italian girl (to make his mom happy) who doesn't care how much money he makes and who won't be standing right there every time he turns around after they break up (which is inevitable, because all couples are hurtling toward a breakup. It's just a matter of _when_).

But Wendy's got this smile.

That goddamn smile.

And she gives it way too freely, her California sweetness just bubbling over and dying to get out. She smiles at Freddie, the pot-dealer who comes in for a beer every Wednesday at three o'clock for no apparent reason. She gives it to Ted, to Marshall, to Barney, to every girl she ever meets like they're going to be best friends forever because she brought them a fruity pink drink, she gives it to goddamn Doug even though he practically punched her lights out last week because he was too much of a dumbass to pay attention to the girl standing right next to him.

"You're too nice," he tells her casually one night as they're sweeping up. He turns a chair and sets it up on a table, stepping aside for her to sweep under it.

"Too nice for what?"

"For this city. Every guy on Manhattan's just waiting to take advantage of a sweet girl like you."

She laughs, that tinkling, bell-like sound, and a small patch of creamy skin peeks out when she leans over to reach under the table with the broom and her T-shirt rides up in the back. Carl gets a mad big-brother urge suddenly, wanting to tell her to cover it up before some customer sees it and goes wild with lust.

Then he realizes they're alone in the bar.

Then he starts to sweat.

She waits on the sidewalk when he locks the door and he tries not to look at her. "Well. Night," she says with a shrug, turning to walk for her subway stop, her dark hair brushing over her shoulder in the warm night breeze.

"Night," he says gruffly, his throat dry. What the hell is happening to him?

"Oh, Carl," Wendy says, turning back with a grin. "Boys like the sweetness." She laughs again, gives him that smile.

He licks his lip, takes a step toward her, tongue-tied. "Hey, Wendy—" She waits, still _smiling_, damn her, so innocent. "I was thinking, maybe…" He coughs. She blinks and her eyes are gorgeous. "Maybe you could work the day shift this weekend. For a change." He cringes inwardly.

"Actually, that'd be great. This guy's been asking me out but I always have to work Saturday nights. Thanks, Carl!"

He walks her to her stop and warns her about men.

**July  
**  
Wendy's older sister Angela is supposed to be sitting at the bar, waiting patiently for Wendy to get off work. Instead, she's wandering the bar, flitting from man to man, laughing lightly, accepting the drinks sent her way, tucking her hair behind her ear at the exact, calculated moment that makes men idiots and makes her desirable.

"What's with the face?" Carl asks Wendy when he finds her in the kitchen, dumping food angrily into the trash.

"Nothing. Angela hit on Barney."

"So?" He laughs. "It was either that or wait for him to hit on her."

"Shut it, Carl." He's so damn smug all the time.

"Gimme a break, Wendy. You're not really jealous, are you?"

She shakes her head, scraping the remainder of someone's lasagna off a plate. "_No_. Jeez. She's just—"

Angela appears before them, having made herself at home enough to walk right into the back, and in a matter of moments she's introducing herself to Carl and joking with him about the drunkest of the clientele tonight. She flips her hair, flashes her whitened teeth, shows just enough cleavage that Wendy swears she sees Carl's eyebrows raise appreciatively. Annoying git.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Wendy announces, stalking off. When she returns, Carl and Angela are huddled together laughing about something. "What's so funny?"

Carl holds up the item in question—Wendy's driver's license, the one she got in LA that's nearly expired, the one where her eyes are half-closed like a druggie. The one she's managed to hide from anyone for almost four years. Angela's clutching Carl's arm, doubled over in laughter, and his arm is around her. Something burns in her stomach. She snatches her billfold away from him, shoving it back in her purse with flaming cheeks. "You ready to go, Angela?" she says stiffly.

"Aw honey, I thought I'd stick around here for awhile!" Angela says through her laughter. "Carl, you don't mind, right?" He winks at her.

Angela doesn't arrive back at Wendy's apartment for three hours. She doesn't ask what took so long.

**August**

Carl's grandpa dies on August 17. He spends a week in Brooklyn with his mom. At the funeral, he sees a bouquet of flowers with a card from "The gang at MacLaren's," but this has Wendy written all over it. He'd recognize that little curl on the 'S' anywhere. She's been a little quiet since the night he did shots with her sister (hey, he was honorable, sent Angela back to Wendy's in a cab, just enjoyed a few laughs with her, and all right, maybe a few childhood stories, perhaps one small grope as he helped her into a cab, because okay, she was pretty hot, but she was also way too loud for his tastes, so no big).

So it's a nice gesture.

On his first night back at MacLaren's, he concentrates on pouring beers, making the schedule for the next few months, making small talk with the regulars. Somehow Wendy still manages to corner him in the office and wrap her arms around his waist, curling into him softly and whispering something that was probably meant to be comforting but ends up sending him into sensory overload.

Her hair smells like sunflowers. He didn't even know what sunflowers smelled like, but he's certain that's what it is. Then when he rolls his eyes and sends her out to check on her tables, she smiles at him like she missed him and for the first time since August 17, he forgets about the rock holding down his lungs.

**September **

A drummer named Skye breaks her heart after two weeks and she puts on a brave face, but everybody knows. Even Lily asks Carl what's up with Wendy, she's usually so cheerful, but he just shrugs and pours another beer because he can't figure her out either. She gives smiles too easily. Gives her damn heart too easily. She could learn a thing or two from him. He tells this to Lily. "If she wouldn't end up not speaking to me for a month, I'd go down and tell that asshole _Skye_-- yeah, that's his name, pretty stupid—that he can answer to me next time he decides to stop all over her heart. That's my best waitress over there, and look at her!"

Lily turns to look as Wendy nods solemnly at something a patron is asking her. Then she drops her tray and forlornly picks it up again.

"Pathetic," Carl says, watching her. He feels Lily's eyes on him.

"Yeah," she says with a smile. "It is."

**October **

Carls seems to think he's her older brother. Every time Wendy turns around, he's got another piece of advice for her. "You sound like my grandma, Carl," she says after he tells her about guys who'll follow her down an alleyway just waiting to pull out a knife or make her take drugs in order to get into her pants. As if that makes any sense. "Why don't you just tell me to hitch up my chastity belt and move back home where it's safe, huh?"

"You can get chastity belts at the sex shop on 75th," he replies seriously, and she stares at him blankly before marching off to bring Barney a drink. "Hey," Carl shouts after her. "Quit flirting with the regulars. Haven't you ever heard of the Platinum Rule?" She keeps walking until he shouts, "That guy's only after one thing."

She whirls on him. "What's that? The drink he ordered? Well I'm gonna give it to him. So keep your pants on."

He looks genuinely annoyed, his eyes flashing darkly at her when she gives Barney and Ted free shots a few minutes later, just to spite him. "You gonna pay for that? Your rent's not gonna pay itself and Stinson's sure as hell not paying for your cab home."

Wendy reaches her breaking point when she catches Carl watching her fix her hair in the mirror behind the bar. His face is unreadable until she locks eyes with him in the reflection, and then he smirks and asks whether she needs to redo her lipstick for Barney.

It's easy to let things with Barney happen. Carl goes home. Everyone else goes home, too. Barney's tall and sexy and his hair is like sunshine and his eyes are sky-blue and his words come like honey. He's everything she wants. (He's everything Carl isn't but that's neither here nor there.)

When they're half-naked and sweaty and have broken at least three glasses behind the bar, when Barney's tongue is exploring her ear, sending fire through her, when they start inventing new purposes for Carl's precious beverage gun, then she thinks Carl can take his chastity belt and shove it.

_Too nice, my ass_, she thinks.

**November **

He's going to kick Barney Stinson's ass.

It's not because he slept with Wendy (although he'd like to remove each and every one of Barney's teeth for touching her with those stupid hands with the stupid perfect nails). Not even because Barney hurt her more than she's willing to let on (although he'd like to rip his hair out and then punch him in the kidneys for that, too).

It's because that jackass took the free drink she just gave him and dumped it all over the newly-waxed floor, then leaned over to Marshall and started gesturing wildly about god knew what, the gin and tonic forgotten.

It's Doug that stops Carl, in the end. "Hey bro," Doug says. "Dude's just trying to protect himself. He thinks Wendy's trying to poison him." Carl smacks Doug's hand away, mumbling about how completely idiotic that idea is, but he goes into his office and slams the door instead of smashing Barney's face in.

He walks her to the subway station after work. "Don't give that jerk free drinks anymore," he tells her, casually, his voice quiet. "He just dumps them out."

"I don't get it," she says, looking mournful. "I thought maybe we could be friends?"

"You didn't think you could be friends. You thought he'd start to like you again."

She doesn't say anything.

"Well I've got news, Wendy, he wanted to solve the mystery. It's been solved. He's not opening that book again. You're too damn naïve. And you jump into things without even looking. Come on, kiddo, you're too good for a guy like that." He smiles gently at her, hoping she won't get mad, but the corners of her mouth are already turning down.

She pulls away from him, crossing her arms and training her eyes on the darkened shops they're passing. "Would you quit calling me kiddo! I'm not a _kid_ for god's sake. And I don't need an older brother type looking out for me, all but cock-blocking everything I do!"

"Have it your way," he says, shrugging. They walk in silence for a few minutes. He can feel her seething beneath the surface. "Go on, let it out," he smirks.

"Look," she says, and her voice is shaking a little. He wants to laugh, but she needs to shout, so he holds back. "I came a long way to live my life how I wanted. And I like New York. And I like my job. And I like my friends at the bar. And I like you, when you're not being a complete jackass. I get to make _my_ decisions about _my_ life however the hell I want. And if I want to hook up with someone now and then, I'll do it. I don't need you telling me every five seconds what to do. I moved three thousand miles so I could stop living my life exactly how my sister wanted me to, so."

Carl lets out a bark of laughter, stopping her in her tracks to glare at him. "What?" he says through guffaws. "Please, Wendy. You're doing everything you can to be just like Angela."

Wendy sputters. "I do not!"

He shakes his head, still laughing. "Yeah, right. You flirt with every guy in the bar, you jump into situations just to see what will happen, you—I'd be willing to bet that half the reason you slept with Barney was because your sister showed a passing interest in him."

She feels anger coursing through her veins the longer he talks, an uncontrollable urge to punch in that cynical smirk, to shut him up once and for all. Her hands curl into fists. "Shut up, Carl. You don't even know my sister."

"Oh, I know her. Took ten minutes to get to know her. Only about half as long as it took to get to know you. The difference between the two of you is, you're too genuinely nice to pull off the act. Angela's got nothing on you, Wendy." He's suddenly looking at her with—it almost looks like fondness. It's that nice-guy look of his. Reliable Carl. Friendly Carl. Everybody-loves-him Carl. Annoying, barely-talks-except-when-he-won't-shut-up, frustrating, stoic, dependable, predictable, boring, cynical, ruffled-at-the-edges Carl.

"You don't know a damn thing about me," she whispers through the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, I think I do," he says, half-smiling, and he takes slow step toward her, so she steps back. "I think I figured out everything about you I'd ever need to know the day you walked into MacLaren's and said you weren't leaving without a job." There's a twinkle in his eye and she knows he's remembering how she'd immediately turned around and left that day when he'd told her they weren't hiring and she should turn her ass around and go home.

"Yeah, well, I came back," she retorts, taking another unsteady step back as he advances on her, still chuckling softly at her anger. "And I'm the best waitress you've got and if I want to have sex with Barney Stinson every fucking night on the bar, I will."

His eyes narrow. "What do you mean _on_ the b—"

"Back off, Carl," she exclaims, steeling her nerves. "I can walk my_self_ to the subway, and I can jump into any situation I goddamn want. So give it a freaking _rest_." She lunges at him, unsure whether she's planning to punch him or just wrestle him to the ground like she's five years old, playing with her cousins under the Christmas tree. Instead, he catches her wrists and he's too close and he's giving her a bored look that quickly turns… warm.

She's breathing too fast. His hands are too big. Scratch that, his entire being is too big. In a really… pleasant sort of way. His eyes lock on hers, searching for a moment, and he's licking his lip like he's going to say something. She rips her hands away with a frustrated cry, stopping him, and begins to walk.

"_Don't _follow me," she warns when she hears footsteps behind her.

**December **

The MacLaren's staff Christmas party is your basic affair. They shut down the bar for a night, the drinks flow freely, Freddie the druggie shows up as the date of of the new waitresses, and Carl sits in the office trying to finish up the holidays schedule as the party goes on without him.

He's managed to avoid Wendy for the last few weeks, partly by scheduling them for separate shifts, partly by convincing himself to let her be, because maybe she was right, maybe he's been too hard on her, and also because he was five seconds away from kissing her that night on the street and that just leads to trouble.

He likes avoiding trouble.

Besides, she's done her best never to be caught alone around him. Conversation is casual, civil, even pleasant. Never heated.

So when he locks up the office and heads out into the part, the last person he expects to meet in the darkened kitchen is Wendy, a bottle of champagne in one hand, two glasses in the other.

"Hey," she says, slightly awkward.

"What up?" he replies, feigning normalcy.

"I was just coming to see if you wanted to have a drink. With me."

Carl scratches the back of his neck, cranes around to look out into the bar. Doug's juggling. He should get out there to supervise. But he looks back and Wendy's looking hopeful, like maybe she wants to make amends, so he exhales and steps back against a counter. "Sure, why not. Except… I don't drink."

"Ha, ha." She rolls her eyes but smiles as she sets down the glasses next to him and pours. When they hold them up for a toast, she takes a breath. "So… to the new year."

"The new year." He drinks.

"I've been thinking about what you said." She says it quickly, like it's been practiced. "And I think… I think you were wrong about some things."

"Look, Wendy…"

"But I also think you made some… good points."

He wills himself not to look at her, because if he does…

He does. How is it possible that she looks even younger, her eyes look even wider, her hair softer (how is it possible he's become such a sap around her, more like)?

"And I think…" She takes a breath, hardly noticing that her thin cardigan is falling down, revealing a soft, pale shoulder. Carl grimaces. "I think you were right about the whole… jumping in thing. And, you know. I'm working on it. So… thanks, I guess." She sighs, a small smile playing on her lips. "Now… do you have anything to say to me?"

He laughs awkwardly, finally meeting her gaze, trying not to think about that shoulder, about that spot just under her jaw he wants to press his lips to.

"The thing is, Wendy—" Someone steps into the kitchen, neck craning as if looking for someone, and they both turn to look. Carl takes her wrist, pulls her around the corner so they can't be interrupted, so the music of the party and the chattering is just a dull roar. "Okay, look… I just… the past few months, I've been…" She furrows her brow, like she's trying to understand him, and—

Damn it all. He slides his arms around her waist and kisses her.

She softens under the kiss, instantly yielding to his lips, a soft gasp of surprise escaping. He covers it by pressing closer, his hands smoothing over her waist, his tongue gently testing her lips.

He should never have done this, because he's not going to be able to stop, and this is bad, really bad, because she's like a flower in his hands, and he's afraid she's going to crumble away any moment. His lips find that place under her jaw, feel her pulse fluttering there, feel how she's trembling in his arms, how her fingers have tightened over his biceps, how she sucks in her breath when he kisses that bare patch of skin on her shoulder. "Wendy," he breathes, and she opens her eyes.

For a moment it seems like she's going to run. Then her hands are on his face, sliding slowly down his cheeks, studying his expression, like she's trying to figure this out and can't. Then she kisses him, an experiment that sends his pulse racing. She's so gorgeous (does she know?), so sweet in his arms, and he wants to say screw the party and take her home to bed.

He's opening his mouth to suggest it when she says, almost tearfully, "I'm here with someone." He pulls back quickly and looks at her. "I'm… here with someone," she repeats, dropping her eyes to his chest. "And… like you said… shouldn't rush into anything, so…" Quietly she disengages herself and he nods, faking a laugh.

"Christmas parties, you know? Bunch of bullshit anyway." He wishes he could stop the defensive words the second they're out of his mouth, but it's too late. He sees the hurt pass over her eyes for a mere instant, replaced by a blank slate.

"See you, then." She pulls her cardigan up to cover her shoulder. He watches her go, then slips out the back.

**January**

Yasmine shows up at the bar in a real mink coat and bright red lipstick, asking for Carl. Wendy tells her he's off tonight. Yasmine looks her up and down, smiles, and walks out.

Wendy doesn't deliver the message.

A week later Ted tells her that he saw Carl and Yasmine together. He smiles at her like this must be really great news for the entire bar somehow. "So what else is new?" she says, her smile tight. Ted's expression flickers for a moment. She leaves to get him his beer.

**February **

They take their time getting things back to normal. She glances awkwardly at Carl. He glances awkwardly back at her. After awhile, they can't avoid talking when they work shifts together. One day Carl pushes her out of the way when Doug throws his toupee across the room, the words "Look out, kiddo" popping out of his mouth before he can stop them, and she feels her stomach flip over. She goes home "sick" and comes back the next day determined to smile at him. She succeeds. He smiles back.

The following week, she asks him if she can pick up some extra shifts and he jokingly refuses to give them to her until she explains why she needs the extra cash. "Writing classes," she finally says, blushing furiously, and he smiles, looking down at the schedule.

"Watch out for them college boys," he says, and when he doesn't say anything more, she just laughs and shrugs.

She wants to ask him about Yasmine, whether things are going well, but the day she finally plucks up the courage, he has lipstick on his collar and she hates his guts.

On Valentine's Day she gives everyone in the bar a stupid little red card. She bought them in a box of thirty, and on his, she's careful to write "To Carl, from Wendy the Waitress" and nothing more.

**March**

Wendy goes out on four dates with four different men in March. The first tries too hard to sleep with her on the first date, and she's sworn off that. The second looks too much like Barney. The third looks too much like her father. The fourth just isn't right and she can't explain why (except she can).

On the last day of the month, she's finishing up her shift when she sees Carl leaning on the edge of the bar, watching the scene before him with interest. She inserts herself next to him, untying her apron. "What's going on?"

"Barney's apologizing to a woman," Carl says nodding toward the booth where Barney stands before a blond-haired woman, looking bewildered and actually somewhat genuine.

Wendy raises her eyebrows. "Why?"

"No idea. Because he screwed her over, I imagine. You wanna get in line?"

"Funny."

Carl nudges her playfully. "Maybe he's not as bad as all that."

"Oh please. What, you trying to get on my good side so I'll work Sunday?"

He shakes his head. "No, just thinking, maybe I don't give you enough credit sometimes."

She gives him a confused smile. "Uh, okay then. I'm just gonna go now, then." She goes into the kitchen, waving to Josh at the grill, heading back to the office to see if the new schedule's been posted before she leaves. She's rifling through the mess of papers on Carl's desk when she looks up and sees the corner of red cardstock peeking out from behind some papers pinned to the bulletin board. She pushes them aside, revealing her Valentine hanging there, mostly hidden, a thumbtack pressed hap-hazardly through the edge.

Opening the card to reveal the decidedly unromantic "To Carl, from Wendy the Waitress" written inside, she bites her lip.

Behind her, Carl clears this throat and Wendy jumps a foot. "Jesus, Carl—"

"Going through my stuff?" he says, crossing his muscular arms, leaning against the doorway.

"No," she says, blushing furiously. "I'm just… looking for the schedule." He gives her a look. "Okay, I'm surprised. You hung this up."

Carl, clearly trying to hide his embarrassment, scratches a hand over his buzzed hair, fidgeting. "Well, you know. Didn't want you to think I didn't appreciate it, just because Valentine's Day's a made up holiday for—"

"For the greeting card companies, yeah yeah yeah," she says suspiciously. "And that's why you hid it underneath about fourteen other papers, pretty much eliminating the chance I'd ever see it."

Carl fidgets some more, coughed, rubs his jaw. "Well, you're seeing it right now, so…"

They look at each other for a moment. His gaze softens. She can't think about anything but kissing him when he looks at her like that.

"Well, I guess I'll just… go. Then. Okay. Bye." After another moment of trying to convince herself of all the reasons she shouldn't throw herself into his arms right now, she shifts her gaze to her feet and brushes past him.

She's moving around the bar, pushing past the patrons clamoring for their beer and pulling on her jacket, when she hears him call her name. She turns around slowly, jacket half-on.

"It's the 'S'es," Carl says, and he looks terrified. She wonders how that's even possible, this big guy with the muscles and the tattoos and the Italian accent. But he's breathing hard, staring at her like everything depends on it.

"The—the what?" she stammers, her coat falling off her arm. She catches it and looks back at him, bewildered.

"It's the way you write your 'S'es. With the little… curl."

Wendy looks around, but no one's paying attention to them. "The way I write my 'S'es?"

Carl steps toward her, looks down shyly, actually scuffing his foot a little against the floor. "Yeah, it's… it's cute. I like to look at it. On the card?"

It takes her a moment to respond. She swallows, not daring to look at him. "Doesn't your girlfriend find that… odd?"

"My girlfriend?" he exclaims? "Christ, woman, Yasmine's been history for weeks.

Her heart instantly hammers in her chest, and she gulps air. "_Weeks_? And what, now you're… just now…"

"Getting my nerve up? Well… yeah. Yeah, this is me getting my nerve up, kiddo." Carl's smiling now, nervously, but in that genuine way he looked at her when she was so mad at him out on the street back in November. "You know my heart just wasn't in the whole Yasmine disaster of a relationship… thing…"

The corners of her mouth turn up, hesitantly. "Don't… call me kiddo?" She takes a step closer.

Carl reaches over, takes her jacket from her arm. "Call you whatever I want," he says softly, so only she can hear. "Somebody's gotta look out for you." His hands slide around her, sending her stomach through the floor. "Or… you could look out for me? I've got this tendency of saying all the wrong things…"

She feels faint. Things don't just happen like this, this easily, things aren't just solved because he likes her handwriting, because he doesn't have a girlfriend. "I don't… I don't know… you're my boss…"

Carl looks behind her. No one's even remotedly glanced their way, but he tugs her out the front door, pulls her coat over her shoulders, ready to explain to her that none of that means anything, that—she's smiling, he realizes. She's smiling and looking at him and he thinks he might be in love with her.

He takes a breath. "Okay, listen up. To borrow a phrase from some lame guy who's inside right now, it looks like I'm gonna need to teach you how to live. And the thing is, you were right. Or I was right. Whatever. You shouldn't jump in blindly. But Wendy—" Her hands are sliding over his stomach, around his waist, and it's a bit hard to think—"Some things take more like… a year to work out… so it's not really…"

"Jumping in blindly?" Wendy breathes, kissing him, her eyes fluttering closed. It feels blind, completely blind, like the sun is shining somewhere just behind him, like she's jumped out of a plane and is falling faster and faster and she doesn't ever want to hit the ground, like fear and ache and something blissful all at once.

"Let's get outta here," Carl whispers in her ear when they break apart, kissing her hair. She looks at him questioningly, and he shrugs. "So I'll cut out early. Being the boss has its perks."

The door opens and Lily comes out, looking satisfied about the events that just occurred inside, Barney followed behind, looking dejected at the fact that he's just apologized to a woman, and they both stop to stare. "Whaddaya call that?" Barney says, motioning to Carl and Wendy wrapped up in each other.

"A pretty good day," Lily says with a small smile at Carl, dragging Barney away.

"Pretty good day," Wendy repeats, laughing, a little overwhelmed.

"Come on." Carl tugs her hand. "Walk you to the subway?"

--

Thanks for reading! Feedback always appreciated. :)


End file.
